Advertisers and marketers are generally not perfectly effective in targeting consumers. In some cases, advertisers and marketers may waste as much as half of their advertising budget during the process of reaching their customers. Some of this waste may be caused by the lack of ability to track customer information. Thus, advertisers and marketers may place a great deal of value on tracking consumer information such as customer demographics data, customer response to advertising campaigns, efficiency of sales channels, and the like. This data may enable advertisers and marketers to eliminate some of the waste and improve their ability to reach consumers.
Currently, some advertisers and marketers have attempted to gain insight into consumer purchasing habits by tracking consumer purchases with consumer cards. For example, grocery and retail stores may issue “membership cards” that provide discounts. Each of these consumer cards, which may be conveniently carried by a consumer, is typically provided with a unique consumer identification number. When presented at points of sale, these consumer cards may enable retailers to associate consumers to specific purchases. Further, they may enable retailers to recognize consumer purchasing habits and trends. Such information may be further passed on to advertisers and marketers, who may use the information to direct their advertising budgets and techniques. Similarly, some advertisers and marketers may obtain consumer purchasing habits from credit card providers, who may easily amass data on credit card users and their purchasing habits.
Consumer cards and credit card transactions may not provide all the information needed by advertisers and marketers, however, as they only track actual purchases, which may not necessarily reflect responses to advertising. In addition, the information obtained may be fragmented when a consumer uses different membership cards or different credit cards for purchase transactions. In contrast, advertisers and marketers typically would like to be able to track consumer purchase cycles from first impression to the point of sale. This complete perspective may enable advertisers and marketers to better ascertain consumer habits and trends and direct their marketing practices. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a system that does not unduly burden consumers, yet offers a way to track consumer purchase cycles from first impression to the point of sale in exchange for incentives.